The administration of a telecommunication system involves providing the system with information that (a) specifies, for each extension, the system port to which the extension is assigned, and (b) describes the class of service, i.e., the type of user terminal and service features, associated with the extension. Included among the latter information is terminal administration information-information correlating, associating, or mapping, features with user terminal actuators (e.g., terminal buttons, keys, lights, buzzers, etc.) so that system control, e.g., a PBX switch, can (a) interpret the user's intent in actuating one of these actuators (e.g., buttons, keys), or (b) actuate the proper actuator (e.g., light, buzzer) to advise the user of a given event. Terminal administration is one of the more onerous, yet most-widely used, system administration tasks. The administration is typically done by a system administrator on an administration console, by means of a complex and cumbersome textual input process. The process is difficult to learn and prone to error. For example, in the case of one known business communication system, the description of administrative procedures takes up two volumes each in excess of 500 pages long, and system administrators often rely on an extensive process of learning by doing and observation to learn the administrative procedures, as opposed to attempting to learn them by deciphering and digesting the two volumes of description.